STOCKHOLM, August 10. /TASS/. Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands have become priority targets for Islamist terror groups following Quran-burning rallies in these countries, while terror threats have become more pronounced, counter-terrorism chief Magnus Sjoberg with the Swedish police's National Operative Department told the TT News Agency.

"We have reports and communiques from most terrorist groups that now mention Sweden, together with Denmark and the Netherlands, in statements. This makes the threat more tangible," he noted.

In October 2010, Sweden's National Security Service (SAPO) raised the terrorist threat level from the second level to the third, or elevated, threat level. "Threat level three has meant that we have worked hard to raise our capability, which was too low in 2010, to today have a capability that I am confident with," Sjoberg said.

When asked how well prepared the Swedish police are to handle the growing terrorist threat, he replied: "We know what we need to do and we have a significantly better ability to do it today than we had before. But none of us can guarantee that there won’t be an attack."

On June 28, with a police permit, Salwan Momika, a 37-year-old Iraqi immigrant, tore pages out of the Quran and set fire to the Muslim holy book at Medborgarplatsen Square in central Stockholm. At a similar demonstration outside the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm on July 20, Momika and a second organizer, Salwan Najem, kicked the holy book but did not burn it, and on July 31 they burned the Quran again, this time outside the Swedish parliament building. On August 3, a police-authorized rally took place on a Lake Malaren beach in the Stockholm suburbs, the organizer of which also burned the Quran, saying that with this demonstration she wished to show that "religion is also politics." Meanwhile, members of the Danish Patriots, a right-wing activist group, had earlier burned copies of the Quran in front of the embassies of Egypt, Turkey and Iraq.